MEDICAL POT INITIATIVE LAUNCHED

Would Provide Protections Against Getting Fired From Jobs

PHOENIX - An initiative drive launched Thursday would give some
people who are prescribed marijuana and test positive for the drug on
the job the same legal anti-discrimination protections against
getting fired as women and minorities.

The measure, dubbed the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, would allow
doctors to essentially prescribe marijuana to patients who are
suffering from any one of a specific set of conditions. It also would
allow creation of a network of nonprofit shops that would sell
marijuana to those who have those prescriptions and allow those not
within 25 miles of a shop to grow their own.

Backers need to gather 153,365 valid signatures by July 1, 2010, to
put the measure on the ballot that year.

The plan, modeled after similar laws in other states, requires only
"written certification" from a doctor to get up to 2.5 ounces of
marijuana every two weeks. The drugs would come from nonprofit
dispensaries, though the question of where they get their plants or
seeds is not addressed.

Campaign manager Andrew Meyers said there are differences in this
plan designed to make it less subject to abuse than the California
model, like distance restrictions of these shops from schools.

There also is a list of medical conditions that could be treated with
marijuana, ranging from glaucoma and AIDS to chronic or debilitating
conditions that lead to severe and chronic pain, severe nausea,
seizures, or severe and persistent muscle spasms.

What it also contains, though, are anti-discrimination provisions,
including one that an employer cannot make hiring, firing and
disciplinary conditions based on a person's status as the holder of a
medical marijuana card. Potentially more significant, that protection
extends to someone who tests positive for drugs unless the person
used or possessed marijuana on the job or was "impaired" during work hours.

Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall said the problem is proving what
constitutes impairment.

With alcohol, she said, it's easy. Tests determine a blood- alcohol
level. And there are standards in both state and federal laws that
determine what level constitutes impairment.

That doesn't exist for marijuana.

Attorney Don Johnsen, who specializes in labor law, said the
language, similar to laws that prohibit discrimination on race,
religion or gender, will lead to a lawsuit every time a company fires
or refuses to hire someone with a medical marijuana card if he or she
is found positive. Johnsen said each side will hire medical experts
to argue to a jury whether a specific reading of a metabolite of
marijuana shows the person was impaired.

Meyers agreed that the question of what happens to a worker who tests
positive "becomes a question for the courts." But Meyers said he's
not concerned about employer rights in these cases.

"We don't believe that someone that is using a medication that their
doctor recommends to them should be fired because they're following a
doctor's advice," he said, adding marijuana should not be treated
different from other prescriptions.

Johnsen, however, pointed out that employers are now free to fire
people for virtually any reason at all, including showing up at work
under the influence of other legal drugs.

Another provision says schools could not refuse to enroll and
landlords could not refuse to rent to those entitled to use medical
marijuana unless they would lose dollars or licensing because of federal laws.

And the use of marijuana for medical purposes could not be taken into
account in child custody or visitation disputes, nor would it be
evidence of neglect or child endangerment "unless the person's
behavior creates an unreasonable danger to the safety of the minor as
established by clear and convincing evidence."

Nothing in the Arizona proposal, like those approved in other states,
would immunize anyone from prosecution under federal drug possession
laws. But the record so far has been federal agents have shown little
interest in going after individuals for possessing small amounts of marijuana.

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DID YOU KNOW

If backers of a proposed medical marijuana law are successful in
getting it on the ballot, it will be the fourth time Arizonans are
asked to legitimize medicinal use of the drug.

Voters approved a measure in 1996 allowing doctors to prescribe
otherwise illegal drugs to seriously and terminally ill patients,
only to have key provisions repealed by the Legislature.

Voters reapproved the law in 1998, but language requiring an actual
written prescription made it useless after the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Agency threatened to revoke all prescription-writing privileges of
any doctor writing such a prescription.

A 2002 measure sought to get around that by making a simple written
recommendation by a doctor sufficient. But that initiative failed, in
part because it would have made the Department of Public Safety the
state's largest marijuana supplier.